


Infinitely Obliged

by RileyC



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post-Case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 21:13:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even when Sherlock Holmes gets everything wrong, there can still be illumination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infinitely Obliged

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfromfla asked for: Holmes and Watson, in Norbury. Missing scene at the end of "The Yellow Face." (I moved the 'action' back to Baker Street. Hope that's okay.)
> 
> Also, I did actually set out to do something slashy here. The guys just felt like yapping, though.

_…Not another word did he say of the case until late that night, when he was turning away, with his lighted candle, for his bedroom._

_"Watson," said he, "if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you."_

“The Adventure of the Yellow Face,” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~

  
**~Infinitely Obliged~**   


“Well, I suppose there is at least one consolation,” Sherlock Holmes said as he set aside his violin.

These were the first words he had uttered since we had departed Norbury and I turned from my desk to regard him. “And that would be?” I asked when it appeared he might lapse back into silence.

Holmes sighed and lounged back on the sofa, his dressing gown trailing to the carpet. There was a rueful cast to his features as he said, “At least Lestrade was not present to witness my blundering about.”

“No; had he been on the case he would even now be rousting out all the inhabitants of Limehouse, convinced some opium-drenched sinister plot of Oriental origin lay at the heart of the matter.”

My reply brought a faint smile to my friend’s thin lips. It faded as he spied my notebook open on my desk. “Not one you’re likely to write up for your adoring public, is it, Watson?” he said with a trace of bitterness in his voice.

He felt he had failed. While it was true that most—nay, _all_ , truth compels me to admit—of his deductions regarding the matter presented to us by Mr. Grant Munro had proved to be in error, still there was a family united in the end with the hope of better days ahead of them. Such was my view of the matter. Sherlock Holmes, I well knew, was not inclined towards such a glossing over of the essentials.

“I do seem to recall that you were once of the opinion your cases should be written up and presented as lessons in the art of deduction. This Munro affair would certainly be illustrative of certain techniques,” I said musingly. I took up my notebook and slowly leafed through its pages, nodding to myself. “Yes, most instructive of the detective’s art,” I murmured to myself.

An impatient snort sounded from the sofa and I glanced over to find Holmes regarding me with some suspicion, “Oh pray, do continue, Watson,” he said with a languid wave of his long-fingered hand.

After seven year’s intimate friendship with Sherlock Holmes, I should be dull of brain indeed were I unable to mark the particular aspects that had worked their way, like burrs, into his skin. “The facts as Grant Munro presented them,” I began, “were of a nature that, with the suggestion of something sinister and macabre at play, could not but excite the imagination. And before you claim yourself above such things,” I said with some forcefulness, “let me remind you that imagination is as crucial to your art as is taking note of the precise number of stairs or some exotic tattoo.”

He stared at me with some irritation for a moment before he gave a slight shrug of his lean shoulders and lounged back again. “I don’t deny it plays a part. It’s a miniscule part, however, or it should be.” One long arm stretched along the back of the sofa, his fingers beat a staccato rhythm against the upholstery. “ _Why_ did I willingly take Grant Munro at his word?” he demanded, brows drawn together in a fury of self-inquisition.

“Holmes, you can hardly begin with the proposition that your clients are lying to you.”

“Can I not?” was the dark reply. “Protest all you like, Watson,” he arched a challenging eyebrow at me, “but I would dare you to single out one person who has crossed our threshold and presented a case to us that was entirely as it appeared.”

I could hardly let this arrogant calumny of our clients stand. “They present the facts as they know them to be, Holmes. You can’t deny that.”

“I don’t deny it. I factor it into my reasoning. If they possessed a complete and thorough understanding of the matter at hand they would hardly present themselves to me. It’s precisely because of their hazy and inevitably wrong comprehension of events that they find themselves mystified and all at sea. _I know that_ ,” he added with a quiet fierceness. “Why did I forget?”

Thus had we arrived at the second item responsible for why he had misconstrued matters. “Had Grant Munro’s mystery revolved around the actions of a male friend, would you have made the same errors, Holmes?”

“Hardly,” Holmes replied with a sharp bark of laughter. “A man would not have created such a tangle. Oh yes,” he added as I gave him a meaningful look, “I do take your meaning, Watson: I habitually underestimate the fair sex and this will no doubt prove a fatal error at some point.”

“Not fatal, I trust, but you could be in for a rude awakening one day.”

“Forgive me, but I seem to have overlooked the moment when your superior knowledge of the feminine mind provided you with an eureka moment of total clarity as to the true nature of events,” Holmes said in tones that, were it anyone else, could only be described as petulant.

He lapsed into a brooding silence then, broken only by the occasional glance my way. At first, his expression remained one of grim frustration but gradually a shift began to take place until he wore a look of humorous contrition. “I don’t concede that you are correct, Watson, however,” he got to his feet and went over to the mantle, “I will take your observations under consideration.”

He struck a match and applied it to a candle. “And, Watson,” he said as he paused at the door of his bedroom, “if it should ever strike that you that I have perhaps gotten hold of the the wrong end of the stick and am about to plunge headlong into a blunder worthy of our colleagues at the Yard, if you would kindly whisper ‘Norbury’ in my ear I would be infinitely obliged.”

“I shall do so gladly, Holmes.”

He gave me a dubious look. “Yes, I rather suspect you will.” He lingered in the doorway as I tidied my desk and stood up. “I shall wish you a good night then, Watson.”

I looked at him and took note of the hesitancy in his manner and experienced a deductive leap of my own. “Holmes,” I began slowly, “have you formed some hypothesis that this case has altered my regard of you and your abilities?” How had I missed that?

“It would be understandable,” he murmured, everything about him guarded now.

I allowed myself a smile as I went to him and leaned close, my lips almost against his ear as I whispered, “Norbury.”

He gave a slight start and looked at me so intently I might have been another mystery he sought to unravel. After another moment, he nodded. “I see. I see,” he repeated, accompanied by a nod and a brief smile. “Well then, good night, Watson.”

“Good night, Holmes,” I said as he closed his door.

For some while as I finished with my notes, the sounds of his violin drifted to me, some composition of his own I thought. Crisp and precise, yet with a sense of something yearning woven in among the notes, the music followed me as I went to my room.

I anticipated pleasant dreams, free of macabre, masked faces at windows. I trusted my friend would enjoy the same.


End file.
